e talk of the village youngsters and that of
children who are better cared for, I inferred just now a want of "flow"
in the thoughts of the former, as though the little scrappy ideas
existed in their brains without much relationship to one another. Of
course it is possible that the brain activity is far greater than one
would surmise, and that it only seems sluggish because of the
insufficiency of our village speech as a means of expression, for
certainly the people's vocabulary is extremely limited, while they have
no habit of talking in sentences of any complexity. Yet where a language
has neither abundant names for ideas, nor flexible forms of
construction to exhibit variations of thought, it is hard to believe
that the brain-life itself is anything but cramped and stiff.

And if the crude phrasing indicates poverty in the more definite kinds
of ideas, I cannot help thinking that another feature of the children's
talk betrays no less a poverty, in respect to those more vague ideas
which relate to behaviour and to perception of other people's position
and feelings. It was since beginning this chapter that I happened to be
walking for some distance in front of four children--three girls and a
boy--from a comfortable middle-class home. It was a Sunday morning, and
they were chatting very quietly, so that their words did not reach me;
but I found it very agreeable to hear the variety of cadence in their
voices, with occasionally pauses, and then a resumption of easy talk, as
if they had got a subject to consider in serious lights, and recognized
each other's right to be heard and understood. Indeed, it bordered on
priggishness, and perhaps over-stepped the border; but nevertheless it
made me feel jealous for our village children, for in the conversation
of village children one never hears that suggestion of a considerate
mental attitude towards one another. The speech is without flexibility
or modulation of tone; harsh, exclamatory, and screaming, or guttural
and drawling. Rarely, if ever, does one derive from it an impression
that the children are growing to regard one another's feelings, or one
another's thoughts. A further point must be mentioned. I hinted that
there might be an additional cause, besides physical privations, for the
loss of the children's attractiveness in many cases even before they
leave school. My belief is that, as they approach the age when ideas of
a sensitive attitude towards life should begin t